All That Matters
by Lady of the Spirit
Summary: Soc's and Greaser shouldn't be friends. They can't be friends. At least, that's what everyone thinks. But when the sun goes down, all that matters is that they are friends.


**A little thing I've had stuck in my head for a while. Does actually not contain any characters belonging to S.E. Hinton or The Outsiders, but the setting is the same as it is in the book. **

**Disclaimer: Setting and the brief mention of Dallas Winston belongs to S.E. Hinton and the Outsiders. James and Jessie belong to me. **

All That Matters

They were an odd pair, to say the least. To say the most, they were downright ridiculous. If anybody had seen them together, they would have rubbed their eyes and done a double take to make sure they weren't hallucinating.

Neither of them cared very much. Jessie and James had been friends since they were five, and they weren't about to stop just because they had grown up on different sides of the city.

Jessica "Jessie" Jones was a greaser. Plain and simple. She grew up on the East side of Tulsa, Oklahoma, was raised by her greaser alcoholic father, and grew up to be a seventeen year old female greaser. She had no siblings, but she had her gang full of fellow female's that saw her as a sister, so it was alright. Her hair was long, waist-length, dark brown and curly, and she always wore a red-and-white polka-dotted scarf as a headband. Her eyes were icy blue, and she was capable of giving a glare that would send a full grown grizzly bear - or perhaps even Dallas Winston, as some who had seen her glare would say - running as fast as it could in the opposite direction (though she had personally met Dallas Winston once and doubted _anything_ would make him run away, other than the cops, and maybe not even them). She constantly wore dark red lipstick, black eyeliner, leather jackets, capris jeans, red plaid t-shirts that she buttoned so it purposefully showed off most of her cleavage, and black pumps. More often than not she would have a cigarette hanging from her lips, even if she wasn't smoking it. She just liked having 'em with her.

James Smith was a soc. Plain and simple. He grew up on the West side of Tulsa, Oklahoma, was raised by both of his successful business owner parents, and grew up to be a seventeen year old male soc. He had a little sister named Mary who looked up to him like he was some sort of god sent from the heavens. He didn't have any real friends besides Jessie, just some guys that he hung out with on occasion when he wasn't with Jessie. His hair was blonde, and always short, cut, and clean. His eyes were brown and warm, and most girls swooned whenever he so much as glanced their way. He wore letterman jackets, being on the school track team and all, white polo shirts, khaki pants that showed his ankles (something Jessie would frequently mock him about) and brown mens shoes that would have looked better on a businessman than a teenager. He never even touched a cigarette, not even once.

It shouldn't have worked, but it did. Their friendship, I mean. Neither of them could remember how they became friends, but neither of them could remember ever _not_ being friends. It seemed to both of them that they had simply always been friends their entire lives, so neither of them could see a reason not to continue being friends, even if they were both part of a society where the two of them being friends would be social suicide.

The two of them were at the park, sitting on the swings. Jessie was smoking, little grey clouds escaping from her red lips as she pulled the cigarette out of her mouth. James told her that if she kept smoking those things, she would die. Jessie told him to shut up. This was a regular occurrence between the two of them.

Jessie, rolling her eyes, then took the cancer stick and dropped it to the ground, digging the toe of her shoe into it to put it out. James rolled his eyes as well, more at her attitude than anything else.

"Sun's goin' down." Jessie said then, looking up.

"It is."

"Wanna watch it?"

"Why not?"

And so they watched the sun go down, two friends pretending that neither of them were part of a group of people the other was supposed to despise with all their being. Pretending that if anyone saw them together, not fighting each other, word wouldn't get around to their friends and they would become outcasts in their neighbourhood. Pretending that they were just two friends, watching the sun go down together, without any problems to keep them from being friends.

Even after the sun disappeared behind the horizon, Jessie kept her eyes on the sky. "Hey, Jamie?" She asked, using her childhood nickname for him.

"Yes, Essie?" James replied, smirking as he saw her scowl at his use of his special nickname for her. He did remember how when they were five, Jessie had been going through a stage where she wouldn't say a single word to anybody, not even him. When he asked her if she knew how to spell her name, Jessie had written her nickname down on a piece of coloured construction paper in black crayon. Only she had forgotten the "J" in her name. Even years later, James never forgot the incident, and frequently called her "Essie" just to annoy her.

"Feel like breaking up?"

This was also a regular occurrence between the two. Every time they got to hang out, just them with no one to disturb them, one of them would ask the other - in their own special way - if they should end their friendship. Every single time, they agreed that they didn't want to end the friendship, and then would continue whatever they were doing as if nothing had happened.

James shrugged. "Do you?"

"Not really."

"Good, because I don't either."

And that was that. The Soc and the Greaser were staying friends for another day.

They wouldn't act like friends at school, of course. Social suicide, after all. They just wouldn't communicate. Jessie would keep to her gang, James would keep to himself and his Soc acquaintances, and neither would so much as glance in the others direction.

But they were friends. A Soc and a Greaser. But labels didn't matter. They were friends, and they would remain friends for who knows how long.

That's really all that matters, anyways.


End file.
